Li’ili’i leads UH into BWC

As a former basketball player, Leisha Li‘ili‘i is pretty familiar with practicing in a gym.

But it was a little unusual to be working on picking up grounders rather than grabbing rebounds.

Wednesday’s rain sent the University of Hawaii softball team indoors for part of their practice as the Rainbow Wahine prepared for this weekend’s Big West series against UC Davis.

"The court is natural for me because I played four years in high school," said Li‘ili‘i, who earned all-star honors three years with the Castle basketball team.

"We just need a lot of reps, getting our muscle memory and staying on top of it."

Although it’s spring break, the Wahine (25-7, 3-0 Big West) went to work on Tuesday with a conditioning session followed by Wednesday’s practice split between Gym II for defensive drills and Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium for batting practice.

They’ll get back into game mode today for the 6 p.m. series opener against UC Davis (13-14, 0-0) at RWSS. The series concludes with a doubleheader Saturday starting at 2 p.m.

UH moved up to No. 18 in the USA Today/NFCA Top 25 poll and No. 22 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 following a sweep at Cal State Northridge last weekend.

Li‘ili‘i earned Big West Field Player of the Week honors for the second time this season after going 5-for-9 with a double and three home runs. In the process, she raised her batting average 28 points to a team-high .314 and leads UH with 23 runs batted in entering the UC Davis series

She’s also second to senior Kelly Majam in home runs (seven), walks (20), slugging percentage (.640) and on-base percentage (.454).

"I’m in a pretty good groove right now and trying to keep it that way," Li‘ili‘i said. "Trying to hit extra and work on recognizing the pitch and adjusting to it."

Against CSUN, Li‘ili‘i hit home runs on pitches on both sides of the strike zone, demonstrating her power to the opposite field as well as her ability to turn on an inside pitch.

She’s also adjusted to a full-time role on defense with two errors in 181 total chances playing first base. Li‘ili‘i earned the Western Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year award as a designated player last season.

"Coming in as a freshman and not playing on defense kind of gave me a little bit of ease knowing I’d focus on only one thing," Li‘ili‘i said. "I had a little bit of difficulty in the beginning of this year, but I’d done it before in high school. It’s a different caliber so I had to adjust. I got used to it and it’s fine now."

The UH offense will face another freshman of the year recipient in UCD pitcher Justine Vela, who claimed the Big West’s honor last year.

Vela, also the reigning Big West Pitcher of the Year, enters this week’s series at 8-2 with a 1.92 earned-run average and 96 strikeouts in 832⁄3 innings. Opponents are hitting .173 against Vela, who threw seven shutout innings and struck out eight in a 1-0 loss to No. 24 Oregon State last Sunday.

UH senior Kaia Parnaby (23-3, 1.14), the nation’s leader in victories, has held opponents to a .177 average while throwing 1842⁄3 innings in 29 appearances. She threw all 21 innings last weekend and was named Big West Pitcher of the Week for the fourth time this season.

The series will also feature contrasting offensive philosophies. UH leads the Big West with 37 home runs. Four players have hit at least five. UCD, which opens its conference schedule today, has only four homers, three off the bat of sophomore Amy Nunez. The Aggies rank second in the league with 42 stolen bases in 48 attempts. UH is 23-for-26 in steals.

While this is the first Big West series between the teams, they do share some recent history. UH and UCD met in 2010 in the NCAA Regionals at Stanford, with the Wahine winning 10-2 on their way to the Women’s College World Series. UH also won two meetings with the Aggies on the opening weekend of the 2011 season.